


the café au nobody asked for

by honeyfare



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Don't Judge Me, F/F, F/M, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Memes, Mutual Pining, One Shot, You're a college student, and you're studying english too, flame man, fluffy shit, gribbles, gribbles is a barista at a cafe, grillby - Freeform, help me, honestly, i think, i'm worried about your coffee dependency kind of shit, i've never written grillby before so, jk there's none, just human things, more like grillbae, overworked reader, owo, probably bad but ok, sksksks, soft shit, this fandom is still thriving, uwu, you're gonna major in concept art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-07-30 03:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20090641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyfare/pseuds/honeyfare
Summary: after a new semester started, you became overworked and had a crippling coffee addiction.who knew that you would gain a crush.





	the café au nobody asked for

**Author's Note:**

> so this is based off a writing tropes prompt from tumblr so....
> 
> this is bad :,)
> 
> (might turn this into a collection if I feel like it)
> 
> the "i'm worried about your coffee dependency" trope because it's mad cute.

it turned into routine.

wake up at around noon, take a quick shower, get dressed in some _really_ comfortable clothes because god knows when you'll be back home, study whatever book you were reading for english class at the café down the street, and then go to your lectures at night. but no, when you came back home, you didn't go back to sleep. instead, you went over all of your class notes and skimmed through everything that was going to be on a test.

even you knew your sleep schedule was _fucked_.

it was to your surprise that even the workers at the coffee shop started glancing at you worriedly. after all, you came in every single day to get coffee with double the amount of espresso they would normally put in their coffee. you didn't even _eat_ anything, and the dark circles around your eyes were starting to worry people walking down the street.

but you didn't bother with them; no you were so focused on school that you didn't bother to pay attention to anything _but_ school. so determined to get to the top of your class that it physically hurt other people when they realized how tired you were. but you were such a workaholic that it felt _wrong_ to not be productive everyday. 

but productive attitude aside, you were a total dumbass sometimes. and not in the sense that you didn't understand basic english. your brain just actively shut down on you to the point where you become dumb. like that one time where the waiter said, "enjoy your meal!" and you responded with, "you too!" and then the other time where you tried to make yourself cookies but you mistakened the salt for sugar even though there were huge labels on the bags. or that other _other_ time when you were reading the essay requirements and you actively said, "does it look like i know if lady macbeth was a victim or a villain?" even though the essay said give your opinion and not hard facts.

needless to say, that didn't stop you from depriving yourself of sleep even when you started to fall asleep reading your books.

you were currently reading a midsummer night's dream when someone sat down on the chair opposite to you. startled from your intensive reading, you glanced up from your book to see- _wait was that fire?_

you recognized the monster as one of the baristas that served you quite often, and it was a wonder how he didn't burn the place down. you stared at him inquisitively until he cleared his throat quietly. did he even have a throat for that matter? 

"i'm worried about your dependency on coffee," he stated finally. 

you almost spit said coffee out of your mouth. he came over because he was worried about _you?_ you're pretty sure he has other things to worry about other than some random college student. 

"what can i say?" your voice was gravelly from not sleeping. "i'm a student, and i don't even have a job. school can do some pretty shitty things to you." his lips pursed for a moment and it looks as though he's decided on something. 

"you're not tired?" you looked incredulously at him. after all, it was rare that people asked you questions like that. but it was endearing in a way. "i'm perfectly fine," you replied. your speech was slightly delayed and slurred and even the barista knew that exhausting yourself to this extent was not good. but he didn't press the matter. he decided that you knew what was best for yourself and he just went back to behind the counter.

the temperature drop when he left made you more aware of how sleepy you were. you were cold now, darn it!

-

the next day, you went to the coffee shop. you could see the barista from yesterday look up at you and you smiled slightly. while you appreciated the concern from him, you had a project to get done, and you weren't trying to slack off. 

you went up to the counter to order your usual, but the barista pushed a cup and a blueberry scone towards you. he chuckled at the look you gave him. "on the house, since your work cannot be interrupted for a lunch break," he explained. you took the coffee and scone gratefully and went to your usual seat to start reading again.

when he came to check on you, your scone was barely touched, but your coffee was completely emptied out. he frowned, but ignored it and left to go work on more orders.

-

you usually left by 6 o'clock, which was a half hour before closing. you had come here so often that even grillby had took note of that. but there you were at the booth, still reading. so either his internal clock was somehow messed up, or you had simply lost track of time. when he walked over to you, he realized that you were not reading, but instead sleeping.

apparently his concern was for good reason. you had passed out, even with the caffeine in your system.

he woke you up as gently as he could, and told you that you needed to go home because he needed to close the shop. you shot up like a rocket. "i didn't finish reading the chapter that i needed to finish!" he laughed quietly while you packed up frantically.

-

okay, this was his breaking point. after a few months of you coming and him continuously being worried for your well being, you two had grown quite close. so you can imagine his concern kicking in at high gear when you came into the shop looking more sleep deprived than you ever had before.

"you look like you haven't slept for the past day and a half," he commented. you shrugged. "it's because i haven't. i've been surviving on 5-hour energy, monster energy drinks, and coffee. i'm surprised i haven't started drinking straight caffeine." he flared up at your response, his frustration slowly building, but he knew that he shouldn't yell at you. 

he took the coffee out of your hands and pushed you to the break room. "hey! grillbz, what are you doing!" he dragged you to the couch and made you lay down. "i am making sure that you sleep. as your friend, i am concerned for your well being and you not sleeping for the past thirty-six hours is not healthy. and i'm taking your bag to make sure that you actually _sleep_ instead of studying." you protested but eventually gave up when he gave you the stare that parents give their children when they're acting up.

he exited the break room after he made you promise that you'd rest and set your backpack behind the counter.

all of his coworkers had never seen him act like that and grillby was bombarded by questions about him and you.

after all, it had become increasingly obvious that he had a crush on you.

-

after the breakroom fiasco, you had decided to _try_ and sleep a little more. grillby was ecstatic when you came into the shop the next day well rested (or at least somewhat well rested). receiving your usual scone and coffee ("hey! you didn't put enough espresso!"), you walked to your booth.

it was essay time.

ah, the joys of writing a six page paper on why romeo and juliet was the greatest piece of literature shakespeare had written. it's not like the teacher 'accidentally' deleted your rough draft of the essay. you angrily typed what you remembered of the essay, looking through class notes and citing the book as the coffee was slowly drained of it's contents. unfortunately, because grillby didn't put enough espresso, you had scarfed down the scone as quick as you could without even tasting it, hoping for some kind of energy.

well, that was a scone wasted.

and it was a scone given to you by your crush too.

you had been typing for more than three or four hours and your eyes burned. you just ignored it until grillby sat down in front of you. the natural light was a welcome change as the artificial stuff coming from your beat up laptop was not appropriate to stare at for four hours. after making sure you made a backup copy, and saving the original document once, twice, three times, you shut your hellspawn of a laptop. "hey, _lumiére_," you teased.

"you act like i didn't learn french at a young age." your mouth quirked up and then it dropped. "wait a second. you didn't get the reference?" you stared at him. "aside from knowing lumiére translates to light, no. i'm afraid i don't get the media reference." you almost cried.

this man, had never watched _beauty and the beast?_

he was a literal candle walking around, _and he'd never watched beauty and the beast._ hell if he wanted to he could dress up like a fucking candle and be the splitting image of the french candelabra.

you sighed and pinched your nose bridge. "what am i going to do with you?" he snorted while you stared in disappointment at the table.

"okay so.. to make a long story short, there's this candle dude named lumiére and i wouldn't be surprised if you dressed up like a candle and looked exactly like him. plus the fact that you kind of know french doesn't make this better." 

_was he laughing?_

"don't bully me! it's not my fault that i practically meet an almost complete replica of my favorite character!" 

-

so here you were, you and grillby sitting on your couch, watching beauty and the beast. it had taken a _lot_ of convincing on your part (“it’s a movie that has a talking candle in it, [y/n]..”), but by some miracle, he was now watching it with you.

let’s just say he was less than thrilled when you tried to get him to sing the songs with you.

-

grillby had now taken the pleasure of being the beta-reader for your essays. how he managed to take your droning for hours is unbeknownst to you.

“how can you listen to me talk for hours on end?”

his flames brightened up a little. “..i like your voice..” he responds.

you really didn’t know how to act after that. all of your composure was lost; your face was now unbelievably hot and you felt the need to hide away from his gaze. 

and now he chooses the time to ask you out. the one time when you’re a hot mess.

_“so now’s the perfect time to ask me out?”_

he just laughs.


End file.
